Rajon Rondo: ‘I beat myself up’ after first game back

In most sports, a player rehabs his way back from an injury gradually. Generally, they take batting practice, do hitting drills or take jump shots in their time away from the action. This is the case most of the time. If you are Rajon Rondo, and you’re coming back from missing eight games from a wrist injury, then you’re good to go after taking a few jumpers before the game.

Rondo didn’t want to aggravate or do any further damage to his injury suffered against the Raptors two weeks ago. After Saturday’s practice, the two-time All-Star said he refrained from shooting at all up until hours before his return Friday night against the Knicks.

“I was pretty critical [of myself] last night,” said Rondo. “Realistically, I haven’t touched a ball since Toronto because of the wrist. I’m a right-handed player so I couldn’t shoot free throws. I beat myself up because I missed a few free throws and some turnovers I made I wasn’t strong to make the pass, but that was the sacrifice I made to go out there and play.”

Rondo said he feels much better, and only expects to wear a protective wrist guard for a few more games because it bothers him mentally. One thing that didn’t bother Rondo Friday night was dealing with the black eye he had after taking a nasty blow in the first half from Iman Shumpert.

“I don’t think [the black eye] affected me,” he said. “It wasn’t the cause of a couple of my turnovers. It was just the timing and me trying to get back throwing regular passes.”

It certainly wasn’t a stellar performance for Rondo. He was 1-of-4 from the field, missed three of his four free throw attempts and had five turnovers. But his mere presence back in the lineup gave Boston greater offensive flexibility.

“It’s a different play-set when he’s out there, because he knows our entire playbook,” said Paul PierceFriday night after the victory. “There are a set of plays we run when Rondo’s not in, but when he’s out there we expand our playbook a little more. So we ran plays that we haven’t ran in eight or nine games.”

Time and repetition, along with applying ice to his injured wrist, is the recipe needed for Rondo to get his game back to its desired level. Until then, however, Boston’s floor general is just happy to be back on the court.

“It felt great,” he said. “It’s a different flow. After no practice or anything for two weeks, and to get back out there in the game, you never know until you’re in the game. You can run and do cardio all you want, but you when you get on that floor and do pick and rolls, and hit the floor and get up doing transition back and forth, it’s a different type of game.”